Empire App Spotlight: Bubbli

Bubbli is innovative, immersive, and imaginative. It’s equal parts dazzling and underwhelming, but in the end Bubbli is an app that deserves more spotlight.

So what exactly is Bubbli? Bubbli is a mobile application that uses your camera to create a dynamic spherical photo, or bubble, of your immediate surroundings. With your phone’s accelerometer, you can then view the moment as if you were standing in the photographer’s shoes.

So say you are at Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals; the atmosphere is electric and the moment is awe-inspiring. With Bubbli you can digitize your surroundings and share it for others to experience. From center ice to the nosebleeds, your friends can see it all.

In developer Aria Glassworks own words; ‘Bubbli is the next best thing to being there’ and frankly, I agree. Bubbli is the poor man’s VR, which is actually quite the compliment.

While the app does have some technical problems caused by motion or shadows when making a bubble, the final results still end up being pretty spectacular.

I was first introduced to this app last year in a college course. We were talking about emerging social networks when Bubbli came into the conversation. While I thoroughly enjoyed the app then, its biggest determent was its lack of user-generated content.

While the community hasn’t quite grown how I hoped it would (partially due to the developer closing shop – no promotion, no updates), Bubbli still has potential.

As a personal resource, Bubbli can be very valuable. You can capture moments, share them on social media and relive them again when you get nostalgic. You don’t even need to the app to view bubbles, you can view bubbles through any web browser (although it’s not quite as fun).

So go download Bubbli (iOS only) and try it for yourself. And who knows, maybe you will be seeing some bubbles from Arctic Empire in the near future!